— The Islamic Circle of North America is taking donations at www.icna.org and by mail at ICNA, P.O. Box 572181, Houston, TX 77257.

— The West Houston Church of Christ, 17100 West, is collecting phone, gas and grocery cards through September for distribution to Red Cross shelters. Call 281-856-0001 or visit www.westhoustonchurch.org.

This seems so disorganized. There is a group of refugees in transit and they are turning away volunteers? Incredible. My parents (who lack net access to sign up for the HCCC thing) are just heading down to the Dome in hopes they will be allowed to do something. The situation will become just as bad as the Superdome if these people arrive and nothing is availible to them.

On a side note, my husband’s company Safety Vision (www.safetyvision.com) is commencing a food/clothing drive. They are an offical site for the food bank and are in conjunction with Channel 2. If you can help please do.

That is an admirable spirit, your parents’, but unfortunately they will be denied access to Reliant Park property and will not be allowed to walk in to the shelter.

Standard security practices are in use at Reliant Park, and will remain so in the interest of protecting the refugees as well as everyone normally here on a daily basis and the public who may be arriving to attend one of the several events over the weekend. No one will be allowed onto the property without a badge, or other security device (a ticket, wristband, etc), or without being a member of the parties arriving by bus from New Orleans.

Sadly, one of the main reasons for this is to keep the shadier element of native Houstonians from taking advantage of the generous offerings set aside for the health and comfort of the refugees. (We’ve already had several local families trying to get in, claiming they are New Orleans refugees but possessing Texas ID cards with Houston addresses.)

Staff-wise the service of food and beverage, as well as basic facility maintenance and housekeeping, is being coordinated on-site here at Reliant Park. If I receive any definite needs-and-contact information, I will let you know.

Okay, one last little bit of info before I jump into traffic for the trek home:

Most of the Superdome arrivals are expected tomorrow starting perhaps as soon as mid-morning, but more likely early tomorrow afternoon. Please be patient with the volunteer coordinators – and keep in mind that if you feel rejected tomorrow by swamped coordinators, they may be more than happy to see you next week when the politics and the newness of the situation has worn off, but people still need your care and compassion.

For those of you who encounter refugees out there who need help entertaining themselves:

Astroworld will be free to anyone with a LA, AL, or MS driver’s license on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday (Someone mentioned this on another topic earlier today?).

The U of H game tomorrow night is free to all with licenses mentioned above. Parking will be refunded, too.

The Comets are also offering free tickets to their next game with ID.

The Children’s Museum, MFAH, and McGovern Health Museum are all free to refugees.

The Symphony will give free tickets with ID.

Metro is working on a transportation plan to get the folks stuck at the Dome out around town as needed.

But mainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina’s. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cross in January via a donation link on its home page, didn’t have one as of mid-day Monday. Nor did Google, Yahoo, MSN, or eBay, all of which hustled earlier in the year to put up donation links on their portals. (Google slapped up an “Information about Hurricane Katrina” link on its Spartan home page, but that led to news sources and stories.)

An Amazon spokesperson said that the online retailer had no plans to post a donation link on its site. “Each case is different,” she said. “The Red Cross has essentially given over its entire site to donations. The tsunami came out of the blue, so it was an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, but the Red Cross has been getting ready for this and getting its message out there for several days.”

I have signed out of my account after sending a generic compaint form. I will never support amazon or be a customer again if they are refusing to help katrina relief efforts! Is there a chance you can help by publishing this.

My coworkers and I travel a lot for business. We always save travel size toiletries for different organizations. We prepared 30 kits in gallon size zip lock bags Sunday night of travel size shampoo, conditioner, bath gel or soap, tampons, perfume samples, face cleansers – little things that people might need entering shelters but I can not find anyone to accept them. I already made a cash donation of what I could afford but I would also really like to get these things to people who need to get cleaned up. Anyone know of a place accepting?

I just read that the Astrodome is refusing families who’ve driven in on their own — only taking “official screened Superdome refugees” — but taking in jail inmates who were in the Superdome? What the hell is up with THAT?

Whoever is in charge needs to get a grip. People need help, no matter what form of transportation they’ve arrived in.

It isn’t some twisted form of profiling. Fact is, the Dome can only support about 25,000 people in any resemblance of comfort – and best-guess estimates are that there are already more than that headed from the Superdome. Rather than have people in the chairs at the Dome watching 25,000 others live in a semblance of humanity on the floor area, those who were not expected already are being directed to other area shelters in schools, churches, and community centers.

The Dome is not setting up just to be a place to sit (like the photos from the Superdome of people sleeping in the stands). It is set up as an organized place to live for several days or even weeks, with cots and tables, and with showers and service areas nearby.

Also consider that the building itself is around 40 years old – and her electric wiring and plumbing is mostly 30+. We do not want the kind of chaos that would come with packing them in up to the rafters, and then overwhelming the facilities in the first couple of days.

Kudos on your efforts to bring relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. There is another way bloggers and other thoughtful people can help:

I have opened forums at http://www.DisasterReliefIdeas.org for the discussion of ideas to aid disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I am not soliciting donations, only ideas. Experts in aspects of disaster relief (housing, healthcare, rebuilding, etc.) are also able to rate these ideas, giving us a means of identifying the most promising ones, which will be shared with disaster relief professionals and persons in authority. Please help our society by contributing your ideas, especially if you are unable to contribute financially to relief efforts.

Everyone. Please, please,please stop calling the evacuees “refugees”. A refugee is a person who is displaced from their native land/country. These people are “AMERICANS” who have been dealt an awful blow. Let us not further demoralize them.

Does anyone know a website that shows the shelter and names of the individuals staying there? It would be nice if people all over the US could send cards – words of encouragement to anyone on the list. I think we just need the name, shelter and the new zip code for mailing purposes.

Just wish to share a humanitarian project I’ve made on http://www.CrisisSearch.com to help with current and future disasters (like Hurricane Katrina/Rita). Please tell others and please help us build the database up…